Texas tackled a child welfare crisis, sought to address the opioid epidemic and looked at how to help more people in the state access mental health care. Here’s a look at this year's top Texas health and human services stories.

A lively legislative session — and a special session — that featured fights over bathrooms. Legal battles over abortion, immigration policy and political maps. A devastating hurricane. 2017 was filled with nonstop news in Texas. Here are the highlights.

Texas leaderstackled a child welfare crisis, sought to address the opioid epidemic and moved to help more people in the state access mental health care. The Republican-led Legislature pushed for abortion restrictions, facing obstacles in the federal courts.Here’s a look at this year's top Texas health and human services stories.

1. Texas lawmakers passed sweeping child welfare legislation

Legislators came to the state Capitol this year with child welfare on the agenda after a grim 2016, when Texas children were sleeping in state offices, caseworkers were overworked and some endangered children were going unseen by workers. Gov. Greg Abbott named the state's child welfare crisis one of four emergency items during his State of the State address in January and warned legislators that the issue would "haunt" them if they did not make changes. The 2018-2019 state budget gives the Department of Family and Protective Services $4 billion, up from $3.5 billion for the previous two-year cycle, and includes money for hiring staff, giving caseworkers pay raises and boosting payments to foster parents.

2. Legislators partially restored cuts to a therapy program for children with disabilities

After the Texas Legislature approved a $350 million cut to funding for speech, physical and occupational therapists in 2015, some clinics were forced to shut their doors, and families and advocates have testified repeatedly about how devastating the loss of care was. This spring, legislators restored about 25 percent of those cut funds. Advocates also found a silver lining when legislators provided additional money for the Early Childhood Intervention program, which which serves 50,000 children under 3 with developmental issues including autism, speech delays and Down syndrome.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and a coalition of 40 other state attorneys general served investigative subpoenas this fall to companies manufacturing or distributing opioids in order to determine their role in the national epidemic. Upshur County also got in on the legal action this fall when it sued drug companies for financial damages for allegedly downplaying the addiction risks of opioids. More county-led lawsuits may come in 2018.

The lawsuits come as families, lawmakers and advocates nationwide work to curb the number of people becoming addicted to or dying from opioids. Texas saw 1,186 opioid-related deaths in 2015 while the nation as a whole had 33,000 such deaths that year, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. The state received $27.4 million in federal funding in 2017 to help with prevention, outreach and treatment for Texans living with opioid addictions.

The Texas House Select Committee on Mental Health released a 109-page reportdays before the start of this year's legislative session, outlining challenges and opportunities for the state to change how people access care and warned that if legislators did not make improvements, "we do so at our own peril." They specifically cited increasing the number of beds available in state hospitals, early intervention for schoolchildren with behavioral health issues, investing in jail diversion programs and beefing up the state's mental health workforce.

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